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Benjamin Franklin

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1. In what year was
Franklin born?

(A) 1706

(B) 1710

(C) 1790

(D) 1698

2. What conference
did Franklin attend in 1754?

(A) The First Continental Congress

(B) The United States Congress

(C) The Albany Convention

(D) The Constitutional Convention

3. What did Franklin
want to do after he finished school?

(A) Become a writer

(B) Become a minister

(C) Join the army

(D) Go to sea

4. When did Franklin
meet his wife?

(A) 1718

(B) 1723

(C) 1725

(D) 1730

5. Why did Franklin
go to England in 1724?

(A) He was appointed as the Pennsylvania assembly's representative

(B) He wanted to buy equipment to start a
printing shop

(C) He wanted to tour Britain and France

(D) He was negotiating a peace treaty

6. Who hired Franklin
when he first arrived in Philadelphia?

(A) Samuel Keimer

(B) William Keith

(C) James Franklin

(D) Thomas Denham

7. Who was Franklin's
partner in his first printing shop?

(A) Samuel Keimer

(B) James Meredith

(C) James Franklin

(D) Samuel Palmer

8. What was the Junto?

(A) A band of ferocious Indians on the frontier

(B) A kind of electrical device

(C) A discussion and debate club

(D) A disease suffered by Franklin and others in his time

9. What paper did
Franklin buy from his former boss?

(A)
Poor Richard's Almanack

(B)
The Philadelphia Herald

(C)
The Pennsylvania Gazette

(D)
The New England Courant

10. How many children
did Franklin have?

(A) One

(B) Two

(C) Three

(D) Four

11. What was the
result of Franklin's essay "A Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge"?

(A) The American Red Cross

(B) The University of Pennsylvania

(C) The Royal Society

(D) The American Philosophical Society

12. What job did
Franklin take on October 5, 1737?

(A) Postmaster General of Pennsylvania

(B) Assistant Printer to Samuel Keimer

(C) President of the American Philosophical Society

(D) Minister plenipotentiary to France

13. What was the
name of Franklin's daughter?

(A) Sally

(B) Abiah

(C) Sarah

(D) Deborah

14. What important
job did Franklin's son William hold?

(A) Postmaster General of North America

(B) Governor of New York

(C) Governor of New Jersey

(D) Proprietor of the Colony of Pennsylvania

15. When did Franklin
retire from the active printing business?

(A) 1752

(B) 1776

(C) 1748

(D) 1737

16. In what year
did Franklin conduct his kite experiment?

(A) 1748

(B) 1752

(C) 1755

(D) 1764

17. Who were the
Paxton Boys?

(A) A group of loyal apprentices to Franklin

(B) The proprietors of Pennsylvania

(C) A group of rebellious settlers who massacred
some Indians

(D) Franklin's childhood friends

18. What did Franklin's
famous 1754 cartoon say?

(A) "Join or Die"

(B) "Give me Liberty of Give Me Death"

(C) "Live Free or Die"

(D) "Silence Equals Death"

19. What did the
cartoon refer to?

(A) The need for people to join the Junto

(B) The need for the colonies to unite to
defend the frontier

(C) The need for the colonies to ratify the Constitution

(D) The need for colonists to resist the Stamp Act

20. Who was "Poor
Richard"?

(A) A childhood friend of Franklin

(B) The pseudonym Franklin used when publishing essays in
his brother James's newspaper

(C) The fictional narrator of Franklin's
yearly almanac

(D) Franklin's nickname for the British king

21. Why did Franklin
return to London in 1764?

(A) To argue against the Stamp Act

(B) To talk the British out of closing the Port of Boston

(C) To petition the British to change Pennsylvania's
form of government

(D) To present his discoveries in the field of electricity
to the Royal Society

22. What colony did
NOT appoint Franklin as its agent in London during the 1760s and
1770s?

(A) Pennsylvania

(B) New York

(C) Massachusetts

(D) Georgia

23. When did Franklin
start writing his Autobiography?

(A) 1764

(B) 1771

(C) 1776

(D) 1788

24. What was Franklin's
father's occupation?

(A) Printer

(B) Minister

(C) Candle maker

(D) Shipbuilder

25. What happened
while Franklin was at sea in 1775?

(A) The founding of the American Philosophical Society

(B) The Battles of Concord and Lexington

(C) The First Continental Congress

(D) The sinking of the Lusitania

26. Who denounced
Franklin as a criminal in 1774?

(A) Alexander Wedderburn

(B) William Franklin

(C) Samuel Keimer

(D) King George III

27. What did Franklin
NOT do in 1776?

(A) Join a mission to bring Canada into the Revolutionary War

(B) Help write the Declaration of Independence

(C) Leave for France as a representative of the colonies

(D) Negotiate a treaty of Alliance with France

28. Where did Franklin
live in France?

(A) Paris

(B) Versailles

(C) Passy

(D) Lyon

29. Who were Franklin's
co-commissioners to France?

(A) Silas Deane and Arthur Lee

(B) Samuel Keimer and Thomas Denham

(C) William Keith and James Meredith

(D) Thomas Jefferson and John Adams

30. Whom did Franklin
meet in 1778?

(A) David Hume

(B) Lord Kames

(C) Jean-Jacques Rousseau

(D) Voltaire

31. Who did NOT work
with Franklin to negotiate a peace treaty with Britain?

(A) John Jay

(B) James Madison

(C) Thomas Jefferson

(D) Henry Laurens

32. With whom did
Franklin and the others negotiate?

(A) Lord Grenville

(B) Lord Townsend

(C) William Pitt

(D) Richard Oswald

33. What did Franklin
invent in 1786?

(A) A device to remove books from high shelves

(B) Bifocal lenses

(C) A new kind of stove

(D) The wheelbarrow

34. What did Franklin
help to negotiate in 1787?

(A) The Two-Thirds Compromise

(B) The Mason-Dixon Compromise

(C) The Great Compromise

(D) The Great Awakening

35. When did Franklin
die?

(A) 1789

(B) 1790

(C) 1791

(D) 1792

36. How many trips
across the Atlantic Ocean did Franklin make?

(A) Two

(B) Three

(C) Four

(D) Five

37. When did Deborah
Franklin die?

(A) 1764

(B) 1774

(C) 1784

(D) 1794

38. What post did
Franklin hold after he returned from France in 1785?

(A) President of the American Philosophical Society

(B) President of Pennsylvania's supreme executive council

(C) Both

(D) Neither

39. What did Franklin
do on February 13, 1766?

(A) Flew his kite during a lightning storm to prove that lightning
is electrical

(B) Left Philadelphia to sail for London

(C) Testified against the Stamp Act in the
British House of Commons

(D) Met Adam Smith for the first time

40. When did Franklin
win a seat in the Pennsylvania assembly?

(A) 1742

(B) 1748

(C) 1751

(D) 1755

41. What university
did NOT grant Franklin and honorary degree?

(A) Harvard

(B) Yale

(C) Oxford

(D) University of London

42. Who was Franklin's
printing partner when he retired from the business?

(A) James Meredith

(B) Samuel Keimer

(C) David Hall

(D) William Franklin

43. When did Franklin's
son Francis die?

(A) 1732

(B) 1736

(C) 1740

(D) 1753

44. What magazine
did Franklin buy as a young man and study so as to improve his
writing?

(A)
The Spectator

(B)
The Nation

(C)
The Courant

(D)
The Observer

45. When did Franklin
publish his first essay?

(A) 1718

(B) 1721

(C) 1723

(D) 1730

46. How many "virtues"
did Franklin list in his Autobiography?

(A) Seven

(B) Ten

(C) Thirteen

(D) Fifteen

47. What was Franklin's
first pseudonym?

(A) Poor Richard

(B) Old Fatsides

(C) Big Daddy

(D) Silence Dogood

48. What basic electrical
law did Franklin discover?

(A) The law of conservation of charge

(B) The law of equal and opposite force

(C) The law of amplitude

(D) The law of static transfer

49. What title did
Franklin call himself?

(A) Scientist

(B) Professor

(C) Printer

(D) Patriot

50. When did Franklin
first establish a volunteer militia in Pennsylvania?

(A) 1740

(B) 1746

(C) 1748

(D) 1754

51. Who was the founder
of Pennsylvania?

(A) William Penn

(B) Benjamin Franklin

(C) Thomas Penn

(D) William Pitt

52. Why did Franklin
lose his seat in the Pennsylvania assembly?

(A) He angered the Paxton Boys

(B) He was gone too long in Britain

(C) He supported American independence

(D) He supported changing Pennsylvania from
a proprietary to a royal government